August 2007 - Page 5 of 7 - Ramblin' with Roger

Rogered

We try to keep it a nice wholesome, family-orientated blog here at Ramblin’. But occasionally we fail. I’ve rediscovered that the words “roger” and “rogered” have an interesting, if scatological, slang definition. Thanks, Dorian for bringing this up. (I think.)

Long ago, I found the meaning of ROGER to mean Famous spear; English and French name of Germanic origin, composed of the elements hrod “fame” and gar/ger “spear”, thus “famous spear” and/or derived from Hroth-gar, meaning “spear-bearer”.

There was a black character in the M*A*S*H book, movie, and the first season of the television series called Spearchucker Jones. Spearchucker was considered a racial slur when I was growing up, tied to the notion of the “African savage”, and I suspect it’s more the reason the character got dropped than the fact there were actually no black doctors in Korea; the spear Jones used to chuck in college, BTW, was a javelin.

But I was surprised to find that Spearchucker actually HAD a name: Oliver Wendell Jones. I was going to posit the idea that his given name was Roger, based on the word’s entomology. Another theory shot to heck.
***
Probably TMI: The husband of an ex-girlfriend of mine asked me this recently: “[His wife] once told me a story about taking you to visit her father. Your suitcase snapped open unexpectedly and your condom collection spilled on the ground. True story?”
Answer: Seriously, I have no recollection of such an occurrence. This is not to say that it didn’t happen and I had sensibly blocked it from my mind.
***
Since we’re in the field of what some might consider inappropriate language, a headstone for a dog.

ROG

Domestic Bliss QUESTIONS

Dear Ramblin’:
We’ve had this invasion of ants in our kitchen. How do we get rid of them without using chemicals?
Bugged

Dear Bugged:
Our family has had some success with leaving the peelings from the skins of cucumbers in front of the back entrance. It does leave little ant corpses, though, and you need to replace the peels daily, lest they dry up and become ineffective. Oh, and when you’re picking up those deceased insects, you should sing that segment from the William Tell Overture best known as the Lone Ranger Theme, “dead ant, dead ant, dead ant ant ant.”
***
Dear Ramblin’:
Our toilet is clogged up. What should I use that isn’t some dangerous chemical.
Not Going Down the Hole

Dear NGDTH:
Amazingly effective: a half cup of baking soda. Slowly pour in the cheapest white vinegar you can find until it stops bubbling.
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Dear Ramblin’:
Remember than Seinfeld commercial for American Express in which Jerry walks into a grocery store? His plastic bag comes right open, even as some schmo struggles. I’m like the schmo. Any ideas?
Frustrated

Dear Frustrated:
Water on your fingertips. My store is continually – excessively – washing the produce that I’m going to wash at home anyway. Steal a couple drops. Or, if necessary, lick your fingertips. Also helpful for those plastic garbage bags.
***
Dear Ramblin’:
I hard-boiled eggs, and sometimes the shell sticks to the egg, requiring excessive time, AND I lose a lot of the egg white as a result. Any suggestions?
Eggsasperated

Dear Eggsasperated:
While running cold water on the egg, crack both ends of the egg. Last time I tried this, it worked 10 out of 11 times – the 12th was one I tried to peel the old way.
***
Dear Ramblin’:
Occasionally, I drop a can or bottle of soda. Naturally, I’m afraid that I’ll take a bath when I open the container. Any suggestions?
Not Looking For A Soda Bath

Dear NLFASB:
Don’t know about the bottles, other than opening really slowly. But for cans, I’ve found tapping the top of the container with my index a dozen times is often effective.
***
Dear Ramblin’:
When I make lasagna, my noodles end up sticking together, making putting on those layers of pasta a real chore. Should I just go out and buy that “no cook” lasagna, or is there another way?
Stuck

Dear Stuck:
Long before I ever heard of that “no cook” product, I used regular uncooked lasagna noodles, increasing the quantity sauce by about 20% and making sure the noodles are covered by sauce on both sides. The lasagna noodles get cooked with the lasagna and tastes great.

Have some helpful household hints? Pleaser leave them in the comments section or e-mail them to: Ramblin’s Household Hints
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As an Albany blogger, I guess I ought to note my fair city’s latest claim to fame.

ROG

Another Day

This would have been my Grandma Williams’ 110th birthday, I think. I mean the day is right, it’s the year that’s a little fuzzy. She had always told us – my mother (her daughter), my father, my sisters, me, even her siblings (she was the oldest of five) – that she born in 1898. But when we took her to finally register to vote, in the early 1960s, she told the voter registar that she was born in 1897. What? I suspect that she was OK fibbing to thee rest of us, but didn’t want to swear to a lie.

I spent a lot of time at my grandma’s house. Because both my parents worked outside of the home -my mother at an office in McLean’s department store in Binghamton – my sisters and I went to her house, which she shared with her youngest sibling, my Aunt Deana, every day at lunchtime, and early on, after school. In fact, it was their availability that determined that I would go to elementary school at Daniel S. Dickinson rather than Oak Street, which was the school where people living at my address were supposed to go. This means, if it weren’t for her willingness to do this, I wouldn’t have know Carol, Karen, Lois, Bill, Bernie, Irene, and Diane from K-12, the first five of whom I saw at my HS reunion last year, and the first of which I’ll see this weekend.

On the other hand, my grandma tended to tell stories of boogeymen, and bad people lurking everywhere. My sister Leslie and I were susceptible to her tales, though baby sister Marcia, to her credit, saw right through them.

Anyway, Bill Walsh, the coach of the San Francisco 49ers died last month, and I remembered my grandma. See, I got a call that she had died in Charlotte, NC during the third period of Super Bowl XVI, when Walsh and the team won their first championship against Cincinnati. They’re somehow forever linked in my mind.
***
Today is also the seventh anniversary of the death of my father. I don’t know what more I can say that I haven’t already said here and here and here and especially here. He was gregarious and moody, forthright and secretive, talented and limited. I was talking with my sister Leslie about him this week. He had wanted me to find a way for him to make money on the Internet, but he had so many ideas, many of them unfocused, that I didn’t quite know how to do that. And I felt that he was a bit disappointed in me for that. Whatcha gonna do?
ROG

Playing The Whole Album?

Interesting stuff in this past Friday’s Weekend Journal of the Wall Street Journal, even if Murdock IS buying it.

One piece was Hollywood Report: Up Next — Your Favorite Album; In Concerts, Bands Play CDs, First Track to Last; Battling the iPod Effect by Ethan Smith. WSJ. Aug 3, 2007. pg. W.1

Abstract (Summary)
The impetus behind the current wave of live album concerts comes from England, and in particular from Barry Hogan, the 35-year-old London-based founder and director of an influential music festival called All Tomorrow’s Parties. “When you see a band you love, how often are you sitting there thinking, ‘Why are they doing this new stuff?'” Mr. Hogan asks. And after having asked himself that question one too many times, he decided to do something about it. In 2005 he launched a concert series, related to All Tomorrow’s Parties, called Don’t Look Back. That series has presented around two dozen alt-rock artists playing beloved albums in their entirety — from Iggy Pop’s Stooges playing 1970’s “Fun House” to the Cowboy Junkies doing 1990’s “The Trinity Session.”

Despite sellout crowds, Mr. [Bun E. Carlos of Cheap Trick] acknowledges that in some ways, the concerts were “goofy.” For one thing, the order in which songs appear on an album might not make sense in concert. “If the producer didn’t think there were 10 or 12 killer songs, he’d top load the sequence” with potential hits, Mr. Carlos says. That means that in concert, a band might end up closing with the weakest material of the night. Another problem: There were some songs on the albums that the band had never played live, and they struggled with them. A few were rearranged as acoustic numbers, to give themselves a breather. “We were young men when we did ’em originally,” Mr. Carlos says.

Other artists have taken a more maximalist approach. For the just-completed European tour during which he played his 1973 album “Berlin,” [Lou Reed] was backed by a 30-piece orchestra. Mr. Reed played a brief series of “Berlin” concerts in New York last year, but his manager, Tom Sarig, says he is unsure whether the rocker will perform the album elsewhere in the U.S.

Besides Lou Reed, Iggy Pop, and Cheap Trick, Pink Floyd’s Roger Waters has played live versions of “Dark Side of the Moon”, and Sonic Youth hit the road to play “Daydream Nation”.

This fall, Lucinda Williams will play a week in NYC and LA with each night featuring a complete performance of one of her five most prominent albums, such as 1998’s “Car Wheels on a Gravel Road.” But during a second set, she’ll play selections from her 2007 release “West.”

Interesting. I’ve know of other artists, notably Phish, playing a whole album, but not the actual artist, except once in 1989 in Albany when I saw Joe Jackson play the entire first half of Blaze of Glory, then some other tunes, then the entire second half; the audience was unfamiliar, and therefore not very happy, as some folks walked around the Palace Theater, somewhat bored.

Another piece, on sports: By the Numbers: The Best at Keeping Batters Off Base
Allen St. John. WSJ: Aug 3, 2007. pg. W.3

Abstract (Summary)
In the American League, the BABE list also is topped by two young pitchers, each of whom were crucial pieces in big trades. Dan Haren of the Oakland A’s, acquired from the St. Louis Cardinals for Mark Mulder, has posted a .378 BABE. (Underscoring Billy Beane’s acumen in identifying promising young pitchers is the fact that A’s draft pick Joe Blanton is third in the AL with a .393 BABE.) Behind Mr. Haren is Josh Beckett of the Boston Red Sox, who’s rewarding the faith that General Manager Theo Epstein displayed when he traded two prized prospects to the Florida Marlins for the hard-throwing righty.

One thing that the BABE list shows us is how volatile the pitching side of the game is. The BOP list of top hitters tends to be quite consistent from season-to-season, with such players as Barry Bonds, Albert Pujols and Alex Rodriguez keeping their places at the top alongside sleepers such as Carlos Guillen of the Detroit Tigers. But many of the league’s top pitchers are pretty far down on the BABE list this season. Last year’s National League BABE champ, Brandon Webb of the Arizona Diamonsbacks, is 14th on this season’s list with a .406 mark, two slots behind John Maine of the New York Mets (.402). Roy Halladay of the Toronto Blue Jays, the 2003 AL Cy Young winner and last year’s AL runner up in BABE, is 18th on this year’s list — behind journeyman Ted Lilly of the Chicago Cubs. And Oliver Perez of the Mets (.421, 23rd), who a year ago was demoted to the minors by the pitching-starved Pittsburgh Pirates, ranks ahead of two-time Cy Young winner, and defending AL BABE leader, Johan Santana (.423, 25th).

The writer talks about BABE, or bases per batter. BABE starts with a pitcher’s total bases allowed (the sum of his hits allowed plus one extra point for each double, two extra for each triple and three extra for each homer). When you add in walks issued and batters hit by a pitch, the sum is Grand Total Bases. Divide GTB by the number of batters a pitcher has faced, and the result is BABE. The lower that number, the better a pitcher has been at minimizing the number of bases issued to opposing batters.

There’s a third article in that edition, about a Indie Film festival in New Zealand. Also, in the Saturday edition, there’s this: “New Labor Moves: Belly Dancing Hits Delivery Room; Connection to Childbirth May Have Ancient Origins”, which I sent to our Bradley instructor, our doula, and the only belly dancer I know personally; the former, at least LOVED the piece. If you’re interested in the full text of any of these pieces and can’t access them, e-mail me.
***
It’s sports Hall of Fame season. First the baseball event with a record 75,000 in Cooperstown, then football in Canton and horse racing in Saratoga. Jaquandor provided not only the football story about a guy who played for the only team in NYS, but directed me to a story about Barry Bonds, which pretty much covers my position. The Buffalo guy also notes: “As for people who suggest that his record carry an asterisk in the record books, wouldn’t any batting title from the steroid era also require an asterisk?…Hell, if as many players took steroids as are commonly supposed, shouldn’t the entire yearly standings of Major League Baseball carry an asterisk in that period?” But I know mine’s a minority opinion; in some AOL instant “poll”, 65% were shocked, shocked I tell you, that Barry Bonds should get any kudos at all.
ROG

You Ever Have One of Those Days…

…where none of the individual things would bug you, but the cumulative effect sort of wears you down? I had one last week.

My dear sweet wife has been taking Lydia to day care in the summer, as I do it during the regular school year. The goal is to get them on the 7 a.m. bus, but it was clear they were going to miss it, requiring Carol to drive Lydia – no big deal. But then dear wife says, “Well, since we have some extra time, do you want to do Lydia’s hair?” I explained that *I* don’t have extra time, that I’ve been postponing my stuff (brushing my teeth, picking out my music, etc.) so that THEY can get out of the house. SHE may have extra time, but I don’t. But no big deal.

Then I’m out waiting for my 7:20 bus, with my bike that has its second flat in as many weeks. The 7:20 is late, so late (7:25) that the 7:30 is practically behind it. Does the 7:20 stop and pick us up? It does not, because it’s too “crowded” – though it didn’t look bad to me, and we got on the 7:30, which, of course, just sat there until 7:30. Five or 10 minutes in the morning can make a lot of difference in how much I can work out.

So, on the 7:30 bus, on the front of which I place my bike, there’s a guy sitting across from me. He says, “How old are you? 55?” I’m 54, so I nod yes. He then says, “Can you believe I’M 55?” I reply, “Yes.” He looks slightly crestfallen. I think I was SUPPOSED to comment on how young and vibrant he looked. He then rambled on about something, but I wasn’t really listening.

After my abbreviated workout at the Y, I left my bike there and walked across the Henry Johnson land bridge. I wasn’t quite sure what time it was, so I was periodically looking back to make sure I caught the next bus. On one of these checks, as young woman whizzed by me on the sidewalk on her bike. I didn’t hear her at all. She could have hit me as I turned around. Worse, I came literally two inches from bumping her, which could have knocked her down, possibly into oncoming traffic. I’m sure she was oblivious.

I take a bus home after work, get my bike, and walk it through the park to the bike shop. I explain to the guy there – who I’ve seen several times before, though not last week – that I’d gotten a second flat in a week. He said, “I’ll take your word for it,” but in that way that suggested he didn’t really believe me.

My wife wanted me to pick up pizza on the way home. So I rode to the pizza place, figuring I’d make the order, drop off my bike, then walk and get the pie. I stood at the counter while two guys stood there working on an order. No “I see you” head nod; nothing, for over five minutes. Finally, a third guy comes over and says, “So, are you all set?” “NO, I’m not ALL SET” – I tried to ratchet back my annoyance, which was not really with him but his colleagues. He took my order and said it’d be ready in 15 minutes. I took the bike home, waited 20 minutes, walked to the pizzeria and was told it’ll be another 5 to 7 minutes, which turned out to be more like 10. Pizza shops are very hot places in the summer.

None of these on their own I’d probably even mention, but, as it says in one of my daughter’s book, “I think I’ll move to Australia.”
ROG